Thursday, November 17, 2011

The Heat Is On

Although the campers (to give them a polite description) have been served with eviction notices, they've been given a reprieve
until at least Saturday, thanks to injunctions and Charter of Rights
hearings and the mumbo-jumbo of lawyers and the sober considerations of
the judge.

No matter. For all practical purposes the month-long long protest and park sleep-in is over. Patience has run out.

At what point did the exercise of constitutional rights become
intolerable? The city has simply issued an ultimatum without seemingly
taking into further account the protesters’ objectives and their
preferred means of expression. This is not a carefully calibrated
assessment of the protesters’ rights and the city’s obligation to
preserve public property but an outright ban.

And, yesterday, in response to a question from Nycole Turmel -- has the government listened to the message behind the protests? -- Stephen Harper proclaimed that the NDP's focus on the Occupy protests merely proves that they are "unfit to govern."

Mr. Harper likes to think he supports the Arab Spring. However, he forgets that the movement started as a protest against scarcity -- scarcity of jobs and resources. He and Mr. Worthington live on another planet. Unfortunately, it is not the planet most of us occupy. That's why they are unmoved when the heat is on.

About Me

A retired English teacher, I now write about public policy and, occasionally, personal experience. I leave it to the reader to determine if I practice what I preached to my students for thirty-two years.